The Mayes County sheriff immediately called Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation special agents to help investigate the case. Eventually, agents arrested Gene Leroy Hart.

Hart had escaped from the Mayes County jail a few years earlier. He had been convicted of kidnapping and raping two pregnant women. He kidnapped them in Tulsa and took them to Mayes County where he grew up.

In 1979, a Mayes County jury acquitted Hart of the three murders. However, he went back to prison to serve the remainder of the time on the kidnapping and sexual-assault convictions. He died of a heart attack a few months later.

Since the acquittal, the Girl Scouts murder case has remained open. In 40 years of forensic testing and running leads, OSBI agents said no evidence has surfaced pointing to any other suspect.

Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed, who was elected in 2013, made it his mission to help resolve the case. In the past few years, he has raised private donations to pay for expensive DNA testing that is so sensitive it cannot be performed at the OSBI Forensic Laboratory. Results are not yet available, according to the OSBI.